Didn't We Almost Have It All?
by Divine Sally Bowles
Summary: "He lives in the memories of the crappy apartment, the cold pizza, the bottle of Bordeaux." Neal, trying to deal with losing Kate.


**A/N: My first fic for _White Collar_, so any and all criticisms are appreciated. All the thanks in the world goes to the lovely Cait (breathingslow) for being my unofficial beta and for dragging me into this show for the first place!**

**If you recognize it, it's not mine! All the lyrics belong to the bands/singers (The Script, Jason Mraz, and Ingrid Michaelson).**

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><p>I.<strong><br>Now**

"_I'm still alive but I'm barely breathing."_

Noise, then heat, then silence.

Someone grabbing him. Peter. Peter's arms around him, holding him back even as he throws himself forward, desperate. Lips forming words that he can't hear, ears ringing, deafened from the explosion. Peter's, saying words like _stay back_, telling him not to go any closer.

His own, soundlessly screaming _Kate_ and _no_ and lapsing into incoherent rasps and sobs.

His legs buckle and fold just as Peter is trying to sit him down, after he's sure he won't run—he would, he wants so badly to comb through the wreckage just to _see_ but it's hopeless, there's nothing, nothing, how is there _nothing_—

Peter stops him from falling, catching him halfway down and then lowering him more carefully to the floor, kneeling next to him and putting a hand on his shoulder, saying words he still can't hear. Something about calling for help.

Some _help_ it is, because after they have finished interrogating Peter and examining the wreckage and telling him that Kate is dead and he's in shock, they are slapping handcuffs onto his wrists and leading him away, back to prison.

His hearing has returned, but there is no sound when he looks back at Peter, no protest, no words. Instead, there is only a look, a promise, a locked gaze that says Peter will fix this. Peter will help him.

That thought is the only one he has to console him as he is pushed into a squad car and taken away.

II.**  
>Then<strong>

"_She is mine; she loves her wine and fine dining."_

In his cell, he rolls the taste of the memory around in his mouth like a fine wine. Of course, the wine he _did_ have in the memory was not exactly fine. Far from it. He hadn't been kidding when he'd told Peter they'd fill the Bordeaux bottle with whatever cheap wine they could find.

_Kate looked skeptically at the bottle, holding it up to the light to better see the label as Neal wrangled two slices of cold pizza apart and out of the box. "What did you say they call this?"_

"_Two Buck Chuck," Neal said over his shoulder. "California named it the best chardonnay, or so the guy at the counter told me."_

"_And it was really two dollars."_

"_And change."_

_He didn't miss the slight wrinkling of Kate's nose as he joined her on the floor with the pizza—broke or not, they could surely do better than two-dollar wine, he knew she was thinking—but she seemed to choose her battle and not say anything, instead uncorking and pouring the chardonnay into the empty Bordeaux bottle._

"_To the __Côte d'Azur," she said lightly after pouring the wine into two not-quite-sparkling-clean (they couldn't exactly add the expense of a dishwasher onto their utility bill) glasses and handing one to him. He repeated the toast and gently clinked his glass against hers._

_It was far from the worst wine they'd ever tasted—actually, in the grand scheme of things, he would have voted it some of the best. After an hour, they are full on cold pizza and drunk with cheap wine and kissing lazily, breathing in rhythm as they make love on a cold, bare floor. It is not the better life he has always promised her, but for now, it is the only life he can imagine._

III.**  
>After<strong>

"_Cold tiles beneath your knees, your body broke your fall.  
>Spitting into your own reflection gazing back<br>Inside your porcelain fists, your palms begin to crack."_

At first, he does not let himself think of it. He lives in the memories of the crappy apartment, the cold pizza, the bottle of Bordeaux. He can keep thinking that Kate will be here to visit him like she always was every week before the good-bye. He can close his eyes and imagine her skin on his, as though they are still keeping each other warm in that freezing apartment.

His resolve begins to crack as the weeks pass, as he remembers hearing her voice on that pay phone, running to where she was only to be met with empty air. It is the same feeling he gets these days when he wakes up, shaking, with his hand stretched out to the other side of the bed, grasping for something that isn't there.

He cracks further as the memories begin to slip in, unbidden. Zipping Kate's dress for her as they slipped out to some formal function, one where they were about to run a scam. Dancing at one of those functions, his hands at her waist, her mouth close to his ear as she whispered seductively, detailing exactly what she wanted him to do to her when they got back to the apartment. Waking up to the sunlight on her face and his hand splayed lazily over bare skin.

These memories do not have the pleasant haze of cheap wine cast over them. These memories are stingingly sober, achingly sharp, painfully blissful.

These memories are the ones that make the tears come.

These memories are the ones that make him swear that whatever it takes, he _will_ find whoever was behind the explosion. Kate deserves that much. And so does he.


End file.
